“Mm hmm.”
“Why did you write that?”
“What? Our story?” I clarify.
“Yeah.”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“But you didn’t. I asked you first.”
I sigh.This is going great,I think.We’re behaving like a pair of twelve year-olds.“Low-hanging fruit, I guess.”
“What doesthatmean?” he asks.
“I needed a story. I was on a deadline. I had a lot of shit going on in my life. So I wrote about us,” I say. It’s almost the whole truth, just packaged slightly differently than the reality of the situation. “Now, you. Why did you write it?”
Beckett’s voice shrinks. “Is that all we were to you? Low-hanging fruit?”
“Please. Don’t try to make me feel sorry for you. Everyone thinks I stole it from you!”
“Nobody thinks that, Mel.”
Hearing him say my name like that threatens to push me over the edge. I’m not sure if I want to scream, cry, smash the phone with the nearest hammer—maybe all three. “Beckett. I really need you to listen to yourself for a second. The entire reason we’re having to reconnect for thePeoplemagazine thing is because the whole world thinks I swiped your debut masterpiece.”
“Fine, yes. There’s been some bad press, I’ll give you that. But I doubt the readers believe you actually—”
That does it.
“Who evenareyou?” I interrupt, raising my voice unintentionally. “Thereaders? A few years ago, you were a starry-eyed kid just dreaming of the day when you wouldfinisha novel, and now you’re out here trying to school me about readers?” I take a deep breath, trying to keep my blood pressure from skyrocketing. “Beckett, when you’ve been in the game for more than five minutes, you’ll learn that readers are fickle. They can love you one minute and trash you the next. And that feeling just makes you want to curl up under a rock and die. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.”
“I agreed to thePeoplemagazine piece because I thought it wouldhelpyou,” he says now, deflated.
“Who are you kidding? It’sPeoplemagazine! I’m sure your publicist wasthrilled. I can’t imagine that anyone over there on Team Beckett was concerned that a spotlight piece with the country’s newitauthor would do anything other than boost your sales even more.”
“Is that what you think?” he asks. “Is that all you think of me? You think all I care about is sales? You think I have no pride whatsoever? Like I’m some kind of literary sex worker, like everything I do, every choice I make is somehow just about money and fame now?” His voice regains its strength.
“I didn’t say all that.”
“You might as well have!” He’s on the precipice of yelling.
This does not bode well for my own emotional state. “Well,forgiveme, Beckett. You weresupposedto be writing a family drama, not aromance. Why couldn’t you just stay in your lane?”
“I didn’t know we had lanes to stay in, Melody. You have no idea what happened to me out there.”
“What happened toyou? I’ll tell you what happened to you! You fucking left!” I screamed.
“Ileft?I left?Are you kidding me right now?”
“You did!” I scream, resolute in my anger, allowing all the feelings to bubble up to the surface.
“Youdisappeared!” he insists. “You broke my fucking heart!”
“What?!”
“That’s right, Melody. You fucked me up so bad that I had to write abookabout it just to get through the pain. And now? To hear that the version of it that you wrote was just low-hanging fruit? Shit. You really know how to cut a man when he’s down.”
“Wow,” I say. I can feel my pulse pounding through the vein in my neck. “That’s the most revisionist history bullshit I’ve ever heard.” My words are scathing, caustic. I feel them burning on my tongue as I spit out each vitriolic syllable.
